Panic! At the Disco flips through Boston

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The Dedham Transcript

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Posted Aug. 4, 2014 at 6:40 AM
Updated Aug 4, 2014 at 2:11 PM

Posted Aug. 4, 2014 at 6:40 AM
Updated Aug 4, 2014 at 2:11 PM

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BOSTON -- Panic! At The Disco? More like a 90-minute sprint through 21 insanely infectious dance-rock songs Sunday night at the Blue Hills Bank Pavilion in Boston before about 4000 young and wildly enthusiastic fans.

The Las Vegas band has kind of gone more towards that dance-pop direction with its latest album, the brand new "Too Weird To Live, Too Rare To Die," with more synthesizer melodies, and heightened rhythms. Singer and songwriter Brendon Urie has been quoted as saying they were aiming for "that club feel where the music doesn't let up and the beat never stops." There are some obvious hip-hop and EDM (electronic dance music) flavors to the new CD, but in concert the Panic! sound maintained its rock 'n' roll foundation.

The quartet--Urie, drummer Spencer Smith and bassist Dallon Weekes are official members, with Kenneth Harris the tour guitarist, and Dan Pawlovich serving as tour drummer this summer while Smith is on hiatus--sounded at many times like their Vegas brethren The Killers, if you imagined that band had shifted several degrees further towards the dancefloor, like 'Sam's Town' meets Club 54.

When we last heard this band in 2008, they were touring to support their second album, "Pretty. Odd," which was heavily influenced by their love of the Beatles, and was also compared to the sound of the vintage Zombies and Kinks.

There have been changes since then, with original guitarist and co-songwriter Ryan Ross and bassist Jon Walker leaving by early 2009. Urie took on all the writing chores after that, and 2011's "Vices and Virtues" album featured a more pop-with-punk edges feel. Panic! has always been a band very concerned with the dancefloor, however, and this year's album amps up that quotient even more. Last night's 21-song set included eight of the ten songs on the new CD, and another five from their 2005 debut, but just one tune from that Beatlesque 2008 disc.

Panic! hit the ground running at full speed, with the peripatetic "Vegas Lights," as Urie, in a gold lame jacket over black tee shirt and black leather pants led the crowd in a vibrant charge from his small synth keyboard. A large video screen was at the back of the stage, and four tall columns were scattered around the stage, each able to project video also. Later on, six smoke jets would punctuate some songs with blasts of CO2 smoke, as strobe lights flashed from both overhead and behind the stage for a dazzling effect.

"Time To Dance" didn't need any extra surge to get the throng moving, but Urie delivered it with gusto, all the while prancing around like a crazed pony. "The Ballad of Mona Lisa" from that overlooked third album was the first song to really take on the shape and texture of a conventional rock song, a power ballad with a soaring melody. But you really doubted that the energy level could get any higher, or the tempo any faster, than on the racing rocker, "The Only Difference Between Martyrdom and Suicide is Press Coverage" (lyrics to which are much simpler than that title, by the way).

Page 2 of 3 - Just when it seemed Urie and his band had hit their peak on the fourth song, they blasted off with "Let's Kill Tonight," one of the singles from the new CD, and then followed it up with the big single from the new album "Girls/Girls/Boys," which rides what you might call an emo-groove, where the steady beat does not detract from the soulfulness of Urie's vocal. The pounding ballad "Ready to Go" saw Urie expertly lead into the anthemic chorus "ready to go-o-o-o" where it was truly incredible to see how many of the under-25 crowd were singing along.

Urie donned a guitar to push matters a bit further towards rock with "Trade Mistakes," and a roaring gallop through "New Perspective," as Harris played slide guitar with wah-wah effects. Urie does not seem to enjoy many long-term relationships, as cascading drums and surreal vocal echoes turned "Casual Affair" into a swirling otherworldly rock stew.

The intro to the band's well-known "Miss Jackson" was a bit blue, as Urie detailed how he'd been cheated on, but the frenzied dance-rocker that resulted was a fine way to get all that tension out, and as the crowd went bonkers, Urie did a backflip off the drum riser.

"Nine in the Afternoon" from that 2008 album found Urie at a real piano, playing what seemed like vaudeville-meets-arena-rock, and if that tune didn't sound like a Sergeant Pepper-era Beatles out-take, Ringo is not a Starr. But speaking of influences, little could top Panic! At the Disco's stunning rendition of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody," with Urie again at piano. (How did all these young fans know all those words to singalong so well? Perhaps the video playing in the background of "Wayne's World" was a clue.

Panic!'s homestretch was killer, from the new single where Urie passionately compares a lady love to "Nicotine" for both its good and bad effects, to a careening "But It's Better If You Do." The new album also boasts "Collar Full," yet another visceral rocker bursting with energy. The encores were the new "This Is Gospel" which gives this summer tour its monicker, a pounding, roiling rocker backed by stained glass videos that had the crowd bouncing around in ecstasy (no pun intended). The night ended with the galloping dance-rocker "I Write Sins, Not Tragedies," with a restrained guitar figure leading into a bust-out chorus that had the gleeful fans dancing themselves just about into exhaustion.

Earlier Cincinnati's Walk the Moon got things moving with their own 45-minute set of dance-pop. Their new tune "Spend Your Money" was a buoyant pop march with singer Nick Petricca shifting easily between his normal voice and a soaring falsetto. A couple of their tunes tried too hard for anthem status, but the new "Shut Up and Dance With Me" with its memorable shout-out chorus, was definitely a major league rabble-rouser. Showing off more of his vocal chops on their power ballad "Anna Sun," Petricca might have had some fans wondering if he could be David Bowie's son.

Page 3 of 3 - Early arrivals got to hear a half-hour or so of Boston's own Magic Man, a quintet whose second album, "Before the Waves," was just released July 8.